SPY CAMERAS TO TACKLE BIG RISE IN FLY-TIPPING

NEW surveillance cameras will be trialled in Coventry to tackle a drastic rise in fly-tipping.

Incidents in the city shot up a staggering 47 per cent in a year, from 4,704 in 2017/18 to 6,922 in 2018/19.

Now, in a bid to stop the mess, new cameras are going to be installed at the worst hotspots.

The pilot scheme will initially see 12 new cameras mounted on specially adapted lampposts on six as-of-yet unnamed streets.

The data collected will also be made available to the police.

“The majority of domestic fly tipping is by local people and they fly tip in their own neighbourhood,” a report prepared by the council’s head of environmental services, Craig Hickin, said.

“Our aim is not necessarily to identify offend- ers, although the equipment has the potential to capture evidence, but deter people from this activity and lead to longterm behaviour change.”

There will be two cameras deployed per street “in order to achieve the correct level of surveillance”, the report added.

They will cost £9,000 per street, a council meeting on Thursday, September 19, was told.

Mr Hickin added: “It is also recognised that these same streets that suffer the highest levels of fly tipping also suffer disproportionally from higher levels of crime.

“The service will evaluate the effectiveness of the programme to determine if there is benefit in its expansion.”

The cameras will be capable of storing at least 30 days of data.

Council officers will be able to examine the data remotely, as well as pass the information to police.

Mr Hickin said appropriate signage would be placed in streets to alert people to the cameras.

No details of the pilot start date have been made.

The council said flytipping incidents have reduced in the first quarter of 2019/20 compared to last year, with Mr Hickin describing the trend as “encouraging”.

Despite that, fly-tipping cases have increased year-on-year in Coventry since 2015/16, with the number of incidents increasing 198 per cent from the 2,316 in 2015/16.

They jumped 47 per cent from 20171/8 to 2018/19. Enforcement action also increased 50 per cent in the same period. It has previously been questioned whether the rise in flytipping correlates to job losses in the service following a restructuring, as well as bin collections changing to fortnightly.

Ten officers were lost from the service which previously covered flytipping when it was amalgamated into the Street Enforcement Team in February 2016.

A further smaller restructure was made in February 2018 ‘to better align the service to tackle fly-tipping.’

The council also altered its household waste collections in September 2017, from weekly collections to fortnightly.

However the report on fly-tipping states incidents have increased nationally, not just in Coventry.